Brett,
Been great working you, can't wait to see our other projects come to life!
Andrew & Ken,
Thanks for the feedback
it was fun helping get these custom parts made
All,
As always lots and lots of bits and bobs to be designed and/or printed. I will stop listing every job from now on and only occasionally place an update when something really interesting comes up. In particular have been these three parts:
- Brett's custom secondary. Been a great project to create a large, 3-piece design which screws together and also has angled vents to create a vortex-flow over the secondary for efficient thermal transfer and dew prevention. The threads to screw these pieces together had to be custom designed and on the whole took several iterations to get it perfect.
- ParamountME steel pier. Member had access to a laser cutting company and created multiple files for the machine to cut out every part of the pier out of structural steel (base, top and bottom gussets, upper plate with mounting clearance holes etc).
- Custom tube rings for a 16" RCOS. This has definitely been an interesting bit of work I got asked to do. Had to design two sets to tube rings, using a laser cutter, using stainless steel and perspex as the sandwich material. The rings clamp to the RCOS via the felt-lined perspex (shown in red in the 3D CAD renders). There were alot of constraints, such as mounting hole size and location, perspex shape to maximise contact with the stainless rings, aesthetics and function of the truss cutouts to save weight on the stainless, and how to best integrate the aluminium blocks (not shown) which will mount the tube rings to the mount as well as serve as the clamping mechanism to secure the scope. The joint also had to be designed to meet a certain bolt type and hinge design per request of the member. Lastly, I provided a sketch for the operators to verify various dimensions to ensure the final parts are cut correctly. This item was finalised today and is now ready to be cut, can't wait to see the outcome!
As always, clear skies